Could it be a clone? Beware!

DaveJenson

Found this on eBay:

ebay.com/itm/5PCS-X-P8X32A-Q44-IC-PROPELLER-8-32BIT-COGS-44LQFP-Parallax-/332249276422?hash=item4d5b99a006:g:GYEAAOSwYlRZMelN

For around $30 each you can get a set of 5 of these!

tonyp12

No, they price shows that they hope someone from a country where it's very hard to get hold of a P1, they are willing to pay the premium due to the ebay sellers international shipping.
Or hoping buyer is misinformed what things should cost.

Publison

Why would someone pay $30 when they can get them direct for $8.00?

DaveJenson

And what about the chip markings (MISSING!)?

Publison

Dave I missed that. Surely they did not get a hold of the masks.?!?!

Publison

I sent an email to Ken and the sales dept.

Ken Gracey

I am not sure the market is large enough to justify the mask cost of producing a true clone, but who knows? It would need to be done from our open source files and it's certainly not a leak of he mask set from our silicon supplier (AMS in Europe). In China the S3 robot is popular and the Propeller is likely the only non-China part in the Bill of Materials. This particular photo seems to be from Digi-Key, with the lot number and date code removed.

Ken Gracey

TonyD

They could be counterfeit chips, blanks or other dies just marked by as P8X32A. I remember sparkfun got hit with dodgy AVR chips a few years back:

https://www.sparkfun.com/news/364